


It Was Real Enough to Get Me Through

by shotgunkitten



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Expect lots and lots of angst, F/M, Fix-It, Mild Smut, Minor Character Death, Nick and Ambrose are there to help her through, Sabrina Spellman lives, Sabrina has the worst nightmare in the history of nightmares, Temporary Character Death, trigger warning: mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotgunkitten/pseuds/shotgunkitten
Summary: Sabrina Spellman saw her twin die, her warning about the Void leading her to her own inevitable doom. Except that her family pulls her back at the right moment when she goes to trap the Void, finishing what Sabrina Morningstar started. However, surviving her encounter with the last of the Eldritch terrors doesn't mean that Sabrina got out unscathed, her demons haunting her in her sleep.--------------This is my attempt to ... well, not really fix the mess that the finale of CAOS was, but rather retcon most of it because I can't believe anyone thought that was even in the ballpark of acceptable.
Relationships: Nicholas Scratch/Sabrina Spellman
Comments: 17
Kudos: 52





	It Was Real Enough to Get Me Through

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> If I had to sum up the ending of CAOS in one word, it would be "unacceptable". I'll be forever bitter what they did to Sabrina and Nick, but also to the Spellmans by killing Sabrina.
> 
> Since bitterness and anger are apparently a great motivator (or I'm just petty, you decide), this one shot took form over the last couple of weeks. Not gonna lie, this was painful to write, which is probably the reason why it took so long.
> 
> Welcome to my alternative version of events which leaves Sabrina still shaken, but alive. I'm trying to pick up some balls the writers dropped, mostly but not exclusively in the the series finale. She comes to terms with some things with Nick's help, the two of them talking about topics long overdue along the way.
> 
> Additional warning: there's light smut at the end. If that's not your thing, feel free to jump out shortly after Sabrina and Nick get back upstairs from the morgue and come back for the last few paragraphs.
> 
> I hope you can still enjoy this somehow through all the painful stuff. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> PS: This is the first time I wrote smut, so bear with me?

_And I was catching my breath  
Staring out an open window  
Catching my death  
And I couldn't be sure  
I had a feeling so peculiar_

_(Taylor Swift feat. Bon Iver - evermore)_

It was close to 3 AM when Nick was woken up by something wet hitting his chest. He stirred, trying to wipe it away, but brushed Sabrina’s hair in the process. His mind cleared when he felt her shudder against him and the warlock quickly realized that she was crying. 

“Goodbye, Aunt Zee. Goodbye, Aunt Hilda,” she mumbled in her sleep, more tears soaking his skin. 

“Spellman?” He asked, his voice rough. When she didn’t react, he rubbed her back, worry growing. “Sabrina, wake up. Please.” She kept listing people and his anxiety grew with each name, his heart pounding when she even mentioned her familiar. 

“And Nick. Goodbye, Nick. Goodbye, Nicholas,” she whispered, more tears soaking his skin. 

Her words made his blood run cold. “Sabrina, you have to wake up. Now,” he said louder, his hand on her back a little firmer. She felt cold to the touch and Nick pulled the blanket further up, wrapping her into his arms in the process, hoping to pull her from whatever nightmare she was battling. 

“No … Nick, no,” Sabrina whimpered, her body tensing. 

After what felt like an eternity, she finally woke with a start, gasping for breath and struggling against his embrace. Nick let go of her and followed as she sat up, hovering near her as she looked around her bedroom, moonlight bathing everything in deep shadows. her head quickly snapping from one side to the other. 

“Spellman, it’s okay, you’re safe,” he softly said, his concern for his girlfriend growing when she jerked around and looked at him, her eyes wide. She looked like she had just seen a ghost. 

“Nick?” Sabrina asked quietly, her eyes searching his face before landing on his chest. She reached out with a trembling hand and placed it over his heart. 

His frown etched deeper into his face and he reached out to take her into his arms, but she shook her head. 

After a few moments, she lifted her gaze again. “You’re alive.” There was wonder in her voice. Her hand drifted from his chest to his cheek, cradling his face. “You’re alive.” 

“Sabrina, it was just a nightmare,” Nick tried to reassure her, glad when she finally allowed him to pull her into his arms. However, the way she held onto him for dear life did nothing to calm him down. He kissed her forehead, her temple, her hair – everywhere he could reach while holding her close as she sobbed in his arms, her entire body shaking from the sheer force of her grief. 

Salem hopped up on the bed and rubbed his head against Sabrina’s back in silent comfort before meowing. 

“I don’t know what happened, Salem,” Nick said quietly. “What the heaven did you dream about, Spellman?” 

Sabrina froze in his arms at the question, her sobs dying down. She took a deep breath and leaned back. “Heaven, I think. In the end. We were there, Nick. We were dead.” Tears were streaming down her face and she didn’t even try to wipe them away. “I died and you … you … Nick, you … you followed me … you ...” She couldn’t force herself to say it, instead burying her face in his neck again, clinging to him like he might disappear if she let go of him. 

Nick and Salem looked at each other over Sabrina’s shoulder for a moment before the cat started rubbing his head against her back again. The warlock stared at their reflection in her new mirror, its rectangular shape deliberately chosen so it wouldn’t remind her of the one that had served as a portal. The bit of her dream she had shared shook him to the core and he wrapped his arms around her tighter. 

The idea of a life without her terrified him, the fear settling deep in his bones. He didn’t even want to think about a world without Sabrina Spellman in it for a second. Her implications of what he had done to himself in her nightmare scenario only served to send additional chills down his spine. Nick closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the scent of her shampoo and something that was pure Sabrina filling his senses as he tried to push the thoughts of darker times away. Times when ending things had seemed like a valid solution. When he had tried to take that fatal step to escape the pain, with the deceitful help of Lucifer. He shuddered at the thought that he had almost succeeded, if not for the girl in his arms. She had brought him back with the help of her cousin, had given him a second chance at life that he wasn’t going to throw away. 

Nick lost track of time, holding her as she cried, whispered soothing words to her while Salem purred, trying to alleviate some of her pain, too. After some time, her sobs slowly grew weaker and then stopped altogether, but she still remained pressed flush against him, still clinging to him as if he might disappear the second she let go. 

“You pulled me back too soon,” Sabrina said quietly, her voice hoarse from crying. 

“What do you mean?” He kissed her temple. Was she talking about her nightmare? He would listen if she wanted to tell him about it, but he wasn’t going to push her into reliving the obviously traumatic images. 

“In my dream. I hadn’t managed to trap the Void completely when you pulled me back into … into _her_ body. And you didn’t get mine back,” she elaborated, confirming his suspicions. It still made her skin crawl, the fact that her spirit had been in Sabrina Morningstar’s body. It had felt so wrong, like she was benefiting from her twin’s death. She had wanted to scream when the realization had hit her what they had done. In the end, she had cried and lashed out, asked, begged them to send her back to her own body. Sabrina had felt like an imposter, every second in Morningstar’s body tearing at her. The Queen of Hell had given her life to warn them of what was coming and now she was supposed to just carry on living in her body? 

“But you did it, Sabrina. You trapped the Void. Remember? You told me that you fought us long enough to finish it. And I _did_ get your body back.” Nick remembered all too well how she had fallen apart when she realized that her spirit occupied Sabrina Morningstar’s body and his heart had broken at seeing her like that, the pendulum swinging between rage, guilt and desperation. In the end, it had been him who managed to calm her down at least somewhat. He knew better than the rest of her family what it was like to not feel at home in his own skin, the memory of housing Lucifer brought back to the surface. 

In the end, Ambrose had come up with the solution to use the body of the Weird as a makeshift oxygen mask and Nick had used the necklace he had given Sabrina as a beacon to find her. He had forced himself to keep his mind clear when he grabbed her and brought her back to the mortuary, only allowing the realization that he had held his dead girlfriend’s actual body in his arms to really break through when Sabrina wrapped a blanket around him and her family started to work on the frozen corpse he had brought back. 

He shuddered at the memory, that moment the reality of it all had set in that right there, on the couch he was facing, lay the dead body of his girlfriend. Pale, cold, motionless. Her hair damp from the melting ice, no breath in her lungs, her heart not beating. Nick felt his own anxiety rising as his thoughts began to spiral, the feeling of choking on his own breath growing stronger by the second. The necklace he had used to locate her shimmered in the light, a stark reminder that although Sabrina was hugging him from behind, head resting on his, trying to comfort him the same way he had tried to comfort her earlier, it wasn’t really her – at least not all of her. 

Once her aunts and Ambrose had deemed her body ready, they had wasted no time to set up the ritual to transfer Sabrina’s spirit back into her own body. Nick remembered the relief flooding his system when she shot up with a gasp at first, but then faltered when she looked at the once more lifeless body they had pulled her out of, the grief for the Queen of Hell crashing into her again. In a matter of hours, they had gone from the happy bubble they had been in after leaving Harvey’s place to first Sabrina Morningstar dying in her arms and then Sabrina Spellman charging into the Void alone, her body dying as well, even if her spirit hadn’t. 

The turn of events still gave Nick whiplash just thinking about it and despite what he had gone through in hell, he could only try to imagine what she was feeling, her inner turmoil different from his own. So he had sat there and just let her weep in his arms for as long as she needed to, Salem keeping watch from the back of the couch and Ambrose hovering close by in case she needed anything. In the end, they had slept in a guest room that night – Sabrina had refused to go back to her own room, the images still too fresh, the broken glass from her mirror still on the floor. Nobody had argued and he had held her through the night, probably a little too tight, but she had clung to him just the same, even when exhaustion finally pulled her under. Sleep hadn’t come for him. Instead, he had watched over her, listened to her even breathing, making sure that she was real. 

Nick buried a hand in Sabrina’s sleep-tousled hair and pulled her closer, reassuring himself once again that she was actually there as he pressed his lips to her forehead. That she was whole again. 

“All of you convinced me that I had managed to do enough damage to the Void because the writing on the wall at the academy was gone,” she continued quietly. “I just … stayed in the wrong body and we celebrated my birthday as if nothing had happened. As if Sabrina Morningstar hadn’t just died a few days ago. She never got to celebrate her 17th birthday, Nick, and I just sat there smiling in her body as if everything was fine.” New tears spilled over her cheeks and she hiccupped, her breath ragged. She felt sick at the thought of just going on like it was okay to possess a body that wasn’t hers. 

He pressed a soft kiss to her hair. “That’s not what happened, Sabrina. You know it’s not. We … I wouldn’t have let that happen. You watched her die,” Nick held her when she flinched at his words, but she needed to hear it, come to terms with it. “I wouldn’t have let you pretend that everything was fine and hurt yourself even more in the process.” At first, Zelda had wanted to still celebrate Sabrina’s birthday as planned, but she had balked at the idea of a party. 

“I know. Thanks for that … again,” she said quietly. Nick and Ambrose had supported her wishes to forgo the get together and instead she had spent a quiet day just with her family and Nick. Sabrina had been glued to his side the entire day, seeking refuge in his arms, which he had been happy to provide. He even managed to make her smile when he reinforced her necklace with a protective spell, since keeping her out of trouble just wasn’t an option. She had kissed him then, feeling at peace for the first time since her mirror shattered and then all hell broke loose. He had felt her relax a little after that, just the tiniest bit, and relief had started to settle over him when she fell asleep in his embrace later that night. That relief was smashed to pieces by her nightmare only a few hours later. 

“Of course. Anything for you, Spellman,” Nick answered with a small smile. He’d face off with Zelda Spellman any day if it meant helping the girl in his arms to heal. 

Sabrina sighed and tucked her head under his chin. Everything that had happened had caught up with her in her sleep after a day of relative peace and she wanted, no, needed the reassurance that it wasn’t real. “In my dream, Lilith knew. She knew and she told Lucifer and Caliban that it was me in Sabrina Morningstar’s body. They attacked with possessed miners during the party to kill me and get the body back and I just … I made them disappear. All of them except Lucifer. One of them was Harvey’s dad, Nick.” 

She stopped and took a quivering breath, trying to bury deeper into his arms, to hide from the pain. “I had no idea what was happening, where those people were, what I had done and Harvey kept screaming at me that I killed his dad _as well_ and I just, I didn’t know and I was freaking out and more things disappeared. Ambrose and you took me down to the morgue to calm down and he used Sweeney’s butcher paper to scan me again and I was just … empty. I _was_ the Void, Nick.” Her voice broke, the images the dream had provided her with too fresh. 

“Shhhh, it’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Nick whispered. Even in her dream, farm boy was a douche. While they had found a little common ground after the battle of the bands, Nick couldn’t help but notice how Harvey still had reservations about witches and magic in general and he had to bite his tongue on several occasions not to tell the other boy that his witch hunter lineage was showing. He forced himself to focus, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “The miners are all live and well, Spellman. And we returned Morningstar’s body to hell, remember?” 

Sabrina nodded weakly against his chest, unwilling to move away from him even an inch. She had taken Sabrina Morningstar’s body back to hell the morning after the whole ordeal had happened. It didn’t matter how much she despised Lucifer; her twin had gotten along with him and he seemed to even care about her, at least in his own weird, twisted way. He deserved to know what had happened to her. 

So Sabrina had gone to hell – with Nick by her side. She didn’t want him to go, didn’t want him to visit the place that haunted his own nightmares, but he had refused to let her go alone. They had fought over it, both still raw from what had happened not even 24 hours earlier. In the end, Nick had proven to be even more stubborn than her for once and had stood beside her as she delivered the news to Lucifer and Caliban. The Dark Lord had raged and blamed Sabrina, had ranted about how she should have been the dead one instead. 

When Sabrina quietly agreed, accepting the blame that wasn’t hers to take, Nick had snapped, raising his voice to the creature that had tormented him as he stepped in front of his girlfriend. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice told him that she didn’t need his protection, but he didn’t trust her not do to anything stupid in her current state. As Nick told the story of what had transpired, venom crept into his voice at the mere thought of either of the men in front of him going after Sabrina. He thought he had seen the flicker of something other than hatred in Lucifer’s eyes when he mentioned that both Sabrinas had, in fact, been dead at some point and it had only been dumb luck that they had managed to save Sabrina Spellman. He pushed both ideas aside and forced himself to keep going, ending with the notion that the Queen of Hell had sacrificed herself to save their realms and everyone in them, which included Sabrina. 

Lucifer had looked at them for a long time after Nick was done, the warlock’s nerves on edge as he expected some sort of attack. Caliban, who hadn’t said a word until that point, suggested to Lucifer that with his wife dead, Sabrina Spellman should also not be allowed to live as she would stand in their way to turn Earth into the tenth circle of hell. Nick tensed and got ready to defend them if necessary as the last living Plague King stepped up, seemingly eager to take the job. However, Lucifer had refused, surprising Nick with the reminder that the Queen didn’t want that and they should honor her wishes. Caliban had threatened the Dark Lord after that with the promise to raise an army and take the throne by force now that the Queen was gone, claiming that the Dark Lord had gone soft and he'd rule hell now, as he had intended when he had set out to win the race for the unholy regalia.

Nick was still shielding Sabrina when Lucifer turned his son-in-law into the clay statue he had been before being brought to life, reminding everyone of the power he truly held. He heard Sabrina gasp when the Dark Lord sent the figure crashing into one of the big statues in the throne room, smashing Caliban into a million pieces. A few seconds went by without anyone saying a word before Lucifer looked at the witch and warlock in front of him again, demanding in a quiet, but all the more frightening tone that they bring his daughter’s body to Pandemonium for a Queen’s burial before ordering one of the minions to grab a broom and clean up the wannabe usurper. The last thing they saw before teleporting back to the mortuary was Lucifer burning the last Plague King with hellfire as he advanced what was left of Caliban. 

They had returned with the Queen’s body soon after, minions quickly taking her away. Sabrina had asked Lucifer to allow her to attend the funeral and while Nick thought it was a terrible idea, she had her mind set on it. Lucifer had agreed, but told her that it would be the last time she set foot into Pandemonium. She had simply nodded and they had left once the Lord of Hell had told them he’d send a minion once all arrangements were made to tell them when the funeral would take place. 

Back at home, Sabrina had curled up in Nick’s arms on the front porch, staring ahead without really seeing anything, his worry for her steadily growing. Had she reached her breaking point after everything that had happened over the last year and essentially dying? He couldn’t and hadn’t forced her to talk. Instead, Nick had just held her, acted as the anchor she seemed to need. 

A minion had come only a few hours later, shocking Sabrina back into the present. However, he didn’t bring news about the funeral but about Lilith – the new queen. Apparently, she had attacked Lucifer with the Spear of Longinus, taken her powers back, rendered him powerless and exiled him from hell, taking over the throne in the process. However, the new queen still planned to go through with the funeral. 

Sabrina’s mind had reeled with the onslaught of new information. Lucifer was … gone? Just like that? And Lilith had that spear? How? Had she known all along where it was? If so, why hadn’t she said anything when they had tried to kill Lucifer? Before Nick had gone to Hell? The blood had frozen in her veins. Had he gone to Hell for nothing? Could everything he had to endure have been prevented? 

“We still don’t know if you went to hell for nothing”, she mumbled, breaking the silence. 

Nick closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath as he realized where her thoughts had gone to. They hadn’t talked to Lilith yet, deciding they wouldn’t go back to Pandemonium before the funeral, but the mere idea of the new queen knowing where the weapon had been all along rattled him just as much as Sabrina, if not more. 

“It wasn’t for nothing,” he said quietly, “it kept Lucifer away from you.” 

“But at what cost, Nick?” She looked up at him with glassy eyes. “I should never have let you do that. But I did and then I took the throne anyway.” New tears rolled down her cheeks and she quickly tried to wipe them away. “So I wasn’t worth it, you had that right.” 

He pulled her close again, buried his hand in her hair. “Sabrina, when I said that, I … I was in a bad place. Please don’t ever think that I thought you weren’t worth going to hell for. It kept you safe, that’s all I wanted. You taking the throne hurt, but I know now that you did it to get me out of there. You had good intentions, Spellman. What happened afterwards … they forced your hand, you couldn’t really back out without risking Caliban turning Earth into the tenth circle.” 

“But I ignored that you weren’t okay, I chose not to see it. I should have been there for you and I wasn’t. I let you down.” 

“In your defense, you had a lot going on,” he said, his hand moving down and rubbing soothing circles into her shoulder. 

“That’s no excuse. I should have seen it. I was a terrible girlfriend.” Sabrina buried her face in his neck, the wish to disappear almost overwhelming. 

Nick sighed. “You weren’t. You … you dropped a few balls, true.” He paused for a moment as a thought crossed his mind. It was worth a shot. “But at least they weren’t made of clay.” 

She couldn’t help herself, the urge to laugh so sudden and unexpected that she snorted. When she leaned back to look at him, there was the hint of a smile on her face. “Nick ..." She shouldn’t have told him about that, how she and Prudence had tricked Caliban into doing … well, that. Even if she had felt somewhat proud of it, despite Sabrina Morningstar being not exactly impressed and it not making a difference in the end. Sticking it to Caliban like that had felt good at the time. 

He leaned in and kissed her softly, felt her relaxing and melting against him. He tasted her tears on her lips and he hated it. Hated that she was hurting like this. But he couldn’t take the pain away, all he could do was offer her support. When he pulled back, he held her gaze as he gently wiped away the rest of her tears. 

“In all seriousness, though … we both made mistakes, Sabrina. You didn’t want to see what was happening, but I also didn’t speak up -” 

“You shouldn’t have needed to,” she interrupted him, her brow furrowed. 

“I also didn’t speak up the way I should have,” Nick continued, ignoring her protest. 

“Nick-” he kissed her again to cut off her protest. 

“You were torn into a lot of different directions and just willed me to be okay when I wasn’t, and I … well, I went looking for a solution to dull the pain at Dorian’s instead of trying to talk to you or basically anyone.” 

“And I called you a sex addict for it.” There was bitterness in her voice at the thought that she had thrown his pain in his face just like that. Pain that was her fault, all things considered. “I’m so sorry, Nick. You did the right thing when you broke up with me,” Sabrina said quietly, her gaze lowered. 

“It was the right thing, yeah,” he agreed. “It hurt like heaven, but it was.” Nick put his index finger under her chin and gently forced her to look at his face again. “And you were still hurt when you said that. I get that seeing me like that hurt you, Sabrina, and that it stuck. I’m sorry you had to see that.” He took a deep breath. “But the point I was trying to make is that we both made mistakes and we learned from them. And now we’re stronger because of that. I meant it when I said we were endgame … even if I could have phrased that better,” he admitted with a small smile. “We belong together, Spellman, you and I. I love you.” 

Her answering smile made him breathe a little easier. “We do. I love you, too, Nick … endgame and all.” This time it was Sabrina who kissed him, just a short brush of lips, before she nestled into him again, seeking refuge in his warmth. In an almost morbid twist of fate, she had felt cold since they put her back into her own body that had been exposed to space and Nick, forged in hellfire, had become her personal furnace. Like in that stupid adaption of the passion play that felt like it happened a lifetime ago, when Nick had told her on that stage that he’d keep her warm. And in a sense, Sabrina thought, that really had happened in another life, even if it was just half a year ago. Both of them had been more innocent back then, unaware of what lay in front of them. 

They sat in the quiet of her bedroom for a while, Salem’s continued purring the only real sound, both lost in their own thoughts. It was Nick who finally broke the silence. “Spellman, before you woke up, you … you talked in your sleep. You said goodbye to people. Your family, friends, Salem … me. What was that about?” He felt her tense again in his arms and immediately regretted asking. 

Sabrina swallowed the lump in her throat before she spoke. “I told you that I had become the Void … so I ran away to keep all of you safe. I left you and Ambrose behind in the morgue and teleported to the Mountains of Madness. Blackwood found me there. I … I let him teach me about the Void. Two weeks later, Ambrose, Prudence, Agatha and Roz found me there with Salem’s help. I grew physically weaker, could barely walk because the Void was consuming me from the inside. When they tried to take me back to Greendale, I made Prudence and Roz disappear, too.” Her voice broke as she took a shuddering breath. 

“Hey, none of that happened,” Nick reminded her. When she didn’t stop shivering, he pulled the blanket up, wrapping it around them like a cocoon. Salem meowed in protest at being cut off from direct contact with Sabrina, but the warlock simply shrugged and mumbled “Sorry” before focusing on Sabrina again. “Blackwood’s head is still in the witch’s cell and his body is now scattered over the continents, remember?” He had somehow managed to reattach his head and had almost gotten out of the academy, but Melvin of all people had seen him and alerted the rest of the coven. Back in his cell, Prudence had taken a very mortal chainsaw to him and Nick grimaced as he remembered the bloodbath that had ensued. 

She nodded slightly before she continued. “A few weeks later, all of you showed up. The aunties, Ambrose, you, Agatha, Harvey, Theo and Robin. Blackwood was … he was about to sacrifice me to syphon the Void into this portal he had built.” 

His hold on her tightened, the mere idea of this happening making his blood run cold. “No. For the love of everything that’s unholy, no.” Salem agreed with him. The familiar had jumped on his feet and his back was arched as he hissed. 

“You must have gotten my body in the meantime because you had Pandora’s box,” Sabrina continued, her head resting on his shoulder. “Blackwood got greedy and … I guess you guys suspected that would happen. You tricked him with a duplicate in exchange for me that exploded when he opened it, blinding him.” 

“Sounds about right. There’s no way in heaven we would have let that happen,” Nick insisted. 

“But you did,” she whispered. 

“Sabrina …" 

“It had to be done. All the people I had made disappear … they were stuck in the Void, but they were still alive. To get them out, it was necessary to use that portal. There was a plan. Ambrose and Harvey would go in to get everyone out. Well, almost everyone, I guess. I might have suggested to leave Caliban in the Void,” she admitted, enjoying the way Nick slightly jostled her when he chuckled at that. 

“You really didn’t like your brother-in-law, huh?” he asked, pressing a soft kiss to her hair. 

“He tried to kill me several times and forced Ambrose and me to play around with time so I could stop him from killing all of you, so … yeah, I really didn’t like him,” she answered, closing her eyes for a moment as she remembered seeing Nick cast in stone. Sabrina brushed a kiss over his bare shoulder, savoring the feeling of his warm, soft skin against her lips. 

“Caliban got what he deserved. In your nightmare and in reality,” Nick simply said. 

She nodded and took a deep breath, steeling herself to continue. “In my dream, you would go in with Pandora’s box to trap the rest of the Void once everyone was safe. Robin and Theo held the rope that would get you and Ambrose and Harvey back to safety. The aunties and Agatha … they’d watch over me to make sure I was okay.” Her tone was bittersweet. “I knew that I would die. But I didn’t tell any of you because I also knew you wouldn’t go through with the plan if you had any idea how it was going to end.” 

“Damn right, I’d never agree to that. Neither would your family.” The thought of Blackwood killing her as a twisted sort of sacrifice was bad enough, but this was a million times worse. Sabrina going through with it willingly, knowing that she wasn’t going to survive, to save her friends and those miners. What shook Nick was that he could see it, could see her going there. Could see her keeping that kind of information from everyone so they wouldn’t stop her. 

“I think dream-you had a hunch. You … you basically kissed me goodbye. Even in my nightmares you’re too clever for your own good, Scratch.” Her eyes welled up again. “Aunt Zee was the one to make the cut and when … when my blood reached the portal, the three of you went in. I couldn’t see anything, but after a while I heard Ambrose and Harvey coming back with the people I had sucked in. I … started feeling so cold, Nick. And I heard Aunt Hilda say that I was. There was a Banshee, too, the aunties saw it. I … I think that’s when they realized what was going to happen, but they knew they couldn’t stop it because the Void needed to be trapped completely.” 

Nick felt her tears hit his skin again. There was no way he could pull her any closer, so he buried his face in her hair, his eyes closed as he felt his own tears fall. He could see the scenes she described all too well and the image of her slowly bleeding out would haunt him, too. 

“What you heard before you woke me up … I was growing weak fast. I was trying to hold on, to give you as much time as possible, but …" Sabrina hiccupped as she tried to take a deep breath and failed, ending up gasping for air instead. “You know how they say you see your life flashing before you when you die? I saw my birthdays with my family through the years. Salem. My friends, school. You. You were my last thought, Nick.” She buried her face in the crook of his neck as she cried, clinging to him again as if her life depended on it. 

He said nothing, instead holding onto her, letting her cry while his own tears rolled over his cheeks. Nick realized that his earlier worry, that she had reached her breaking point, might be very much the truth. The cruel images her subconscious had conjured up were at least speaking for themselves. On top of everything else that had happened in the last year, she had basically watched herself die and then died, too, at least in a way. And while the girl sobbing in his arms was the strongest person he had ever met, pushing through whatever life threw her way, he was afraid that Sabrina had arrived at the point where it was too much for even her to take. 

Minutes passed before she spoke up again. “After I … after I was dead, it felt like watching a movie. I saw the aunties cry, and Ambrose, and … and then you came back. You were shouting that the Void was trapped, that we did it. You were so happy, Nick, for a few seconds. And then you saw me on that table and all the blood. And I could see how you slowly realized what had happened, I could see it in your face that you knew. I wanted to go to you so bad, but I couldn’t. I … I couldn’t move. I saw you standing next to Aunt Zee and you refused to believe it and Aunt Hilda was sobbing and Ambrose broke down and so many people were crying and I couldn’t reach out to anyone.” Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that she was rambling, but once she started, she couldn’t find the strength to stop. 

Sabrina shook in Nick’s arms, the shattered look on his face in her dream too painful, Hilda’s tearful babbling about how she had known, the devastation on Zelda’s face too much to bear. And Ambrose, sweet Ambrose who had helped raise her, who had allowed her to crawl into his bed after nightmares when she was little and watched Disney movies with her, who was her brother in all but name and had always been her biggest confidant, who had hugged her so tightly after Hilda’s wedding and had almost cried with relief that she was alive … he simply dropped to his knees, his legs no longer holding him upright. Prudence reached out to him, but he didn’t even seem to notice. She remembered his words from months back when he had asked her if she had any idea what her dying would do to all the people she loved. She did now. 

“It was just a dream, Sabrina, it was all just a dream,” he mumbled into her hair, gently rocking her. Nick’s eyes were squeezed shut as he tried to push away the images she had conjured up, but it was almost impossible. He had seen Sabrina Morningstar die, had collected Sabrina Spellman’s frozen body from space. He knew what she looked like dead and he really wished he didn’t. He did not want that knowledge, to be familiar with the stark contrast to how she normally radiated life. “None of that happened. You didn’t run to the Mountains of Madness, you didn’t become Blackwood’s student and you didn’t die on a sacrificial altar.” 

His voice was rough as he spoke, trying to keep his anxiety at bay. The reaction she had described, his unwillingness to accept her death, sounded very much like he imagined he would react in that situation. His girlfriend had this energy about her that was larger than life – he would refuse to believe it could be gone just like that. He wouldn’t stand there and believe it was real. Not his Sabrina. Not the girl who had revived herself when angels shot her with a crossbow through the heart. Not the girl who had taken on the Dark Lord and hell itself, who had managed to prevent the apocalypse, and was still standing. Nick had no idea how much time had passed when she spoke again. 

“My dream shifted after that. I was in a bright room and … it looked a lot like the Void, but it also didn’t. It felt different. Warm, welcoming. Peaceful. It … it almost looked like a museum, there were these big paintings on the walls. I sat on a bench reading and … for a moment, it was okay. I felt that it was over. That I could rest, that I didn’t have to fight anymore.” Sabrina put her hands against his chest and pushed herself away just enough so she could look at him. There were still silent tears streaming down her face. 

“I sat there for a while and then you were there all of the sudden, asking me if the seat next to me was taken. I was so confused to see you there, you weren’t supposed to be there because that realm was only for the dead. And then you …" She paused and took a shaky breath before she forced herself to continue. “You told me you went swimming in the Sea of Sorrows and how there was a wicked undertow. And you had the nerve to wink.” Sabrina hiccupped again. “You killed yourself and were an asshole about it.” The thought of him dead squeezed the air out of her lungs and she pressed her hand against her mouth in an attempt to stifle the sob that painfully worked its way up her throat. 

“Sabrina …" Nick tried to pull her closer again, but she shook her head. 

“And then you fed me some crap about how we were now together forever. As if it didn’t matter that you took your own life. As if it was romantic that you, who once bragged how long you can hold your breath, went and drowned yourself, for Hecate’s sake. And dream-me bought it. When I should have raged and screamed at you for throwing your life away, I just accepted it and let you kiss me as if you were right and everything was okay.” She shook as she tried to breathe, struggled as Nick overpowered her and pulled her close again, wrapping his arms around her tightly. 

He shuddered at her words, the version of himself in her dream scared the shit out of him. Not just because he killed himself but because being that glib about it … he could actually see it. Playing it off for her sake as if it was no big deal. It rattled him just as much, if not even more, as when they had woken up and Sabrina first told him about the ending of her dream, even if she had only been vague then. “We never sat in that place, Spellman,” Nick said, trying to get through to her. “We’re in your bedroom in the mortuary, both of us alive. It’s November 1st and not a couple of weeks after your birthday. We’re okay.” 

Sabrina was quiet for a moment, her sobs slowly dying down. “Promise me,” she quietly asked, her voice croaky. “Promise me that whatever happens, you’ll never do that.” 

“Sabrina-” 

“Promise me, Nick.” 

He took a deep breath, his earlier thoughts catching up with him again. With the fresh images in his head and the last few days behind him, the idea of a life without Sabrina because she was gone terrifying him even more. He didn’t know how he would react. Had no way of knowing whether grief would overwhelm him enough to end his own life. But he knew that she wanted him to live. Had done everything in her power to ensure that. He couldn’t disappoint her like that. “I promise,” Nick finally said, unable to stop the tears that escaped his eyes as he prayed to Hecate that he would never have to keep that promise in the first place, wouldn’t have to go on without her. 

Sabrina relaxed slightly at his words. “Thank you,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his shoulder as she spoke, followed by a soft kiss. 

“Promise me something, too?” 

“Hm?” Her head was resting on his shoulder again and he could feel her breath gently brush against his skin. Nick shifted her a little so he could look at her. 

“Promise me you’ll never do something as reckless as your dream-self did. Run away like that. Or … shit, sacrifice yourself like that. Promise me that you’ll never do that. That no matter what happens, you talk to me or Ambrose or your aunts and we’ll figure it out together. Promise me that you’ll never do something as reckless again as going off to face the Void alone. Because it wasn’t just your dream, Sabrina. You did try to sacrifice yourself. And it was plain dumb luck that we managed to pull you back in the right moment. That we weren’t too late. I could have lost you a couple of days ago, Spellman, and to be honest, that scares the shit out of me. So promise me that you’ll never do something like that again.” He felt tears burn in his eyes again as he spoke, the reality of how close he had come to lose her washing over him once again. 

Sabrina raised a hand to his face, cupping his cheek. She saw his eyes become glassy, saw and felt him fight his emotions with how he clenched his jaw. “I promise,” she echoed his earlier words and stretched to brush her lips against his to seal the deal. 

“Thank you,” he repeated, feeling some of the tension leave his body. Realistically, Nick knew that it was utopian to hope that the rest of their lives would be smooth sailing. But as long as they stuck together, they could face anything. 

“That goes for you, too, by the way. No more sacrificing yourself. You put me through that once and that was more than enough,” she added. 

He’d do it again in a heartbeat, but he could relate to her words on a different level now. Nick remembered the letter she had left them, remembered his own words goodbye before he had become the flesh acheron. If he made her promise to not do something like that again, it was only fair that she asked the same. “No more sacrificing myself,” he promised. 

“Good.” Sabrina rested her head against his shoulder again, taking comfort in his warmth and the little blanket cocoon he had wrapped them up in. However, her mind was still spinning, trying to divide reality from nightmare. A task a lot harder when both worlds were so closely intertwined. “It felt so real, Nick,” she said after a while, closing her eyes. And it had. Had her dream been more outlandish, it would have been easy to shove it aside. But what her mind had conjured up had hit way too close to home. 

"I know, babe. But all of that was just a dream. A horrible one, yes, but just a dream,” Nick reminded her again quietly, kissing her temple in hopes of further calming her down. 

Another thought occurred to her and she tensed up again. “But what if it wasn’t?” 

“Spellman …" 

She pushed herself off of him just enough so she could look at him. Her eyes were still red and slightly puffy, the contrast harsh against her pale skin even in the moonlight filtering into the room and Nick wanted to pull her back in, hold her close. To keep her safe. 

“What if it wasn’t a dream but a sign? What if … what if it was the Void’s way of letting me know it’s there? Inside of me?” She shivered as she spoke, her eyes wide, alarmed. What if that was the reason why she felt so cold all the time? 

He tucked a wayward curl behind her ear and caressed her cheek. “It’s not. The Void is trapped in Pandora’s box. All of it. There’s no piece of the void inside of you.” 

Sabrina shook her head. “You don’t know that. What if … we really need to drain it out of me?” Absentmindedly, she put her hand on her chest, tracing the line where Zelda had made the cut in her dream. She could almost feel the cool metal of the blade against her skin. 

His eyes dropped to her chest, following the motion of her hand. Nick had a good idea where her thoughts were going and he hated it, hated that her nightmare had managed to get under her skin like that. He grabbed her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles. An idea popped up in his head that would hopefully help to sooth her frayed nerves, even if it was just a little bit. “Let’s wake up Ambrose,” he said, brushing his lips over her forehead when she frowned. “We’ll take that one page out your nightmare’s book. Let’s go down to the morgue and have Ambrose use Sweeney’s butcher paper again.” Maybe it would help her to see that she was physically okay. He didn’t even want to think about any other possible outcome. 

“I don’t want to drag him into this,” she argued, shaking her head. She was afraid of the answer she might get. 

“Spellman, I don’t think he’s going to mind. In case you haven’t noticed, your cousin would do anything for you. Getting up at …" Nick looked at the clock on her side of the bed “almost 4:30 in the morning is not that big of a deal, all things considered.” 

“But-” 

Nick cut her off with a soft kiss. “Let’s do this. Let’s get certainty that you’re whole. That everything is where it’s supposed to be.” He held her gaze and was unable to hide the breath of relief when she nodded slightly. When they had disentangled themselves and gotten out of bed, Nick quickly put on the pants again he had discarded only a few hours ago before he wrapped his arms around Sabrina and kissed her forehead. “Why don’t you go downstairs already and I’ll grab Ambrose?” Salem meowed at the foot of the bed, making him smile. “Yeah, good idea, keep her company. We’ll be right down.” 

“Alright,” she agreed, brushing her lips against his cheek before stepping out of his embrace and pulling on her robe, tying the knot tightly around her waist. 

Nick watched her leave, Salem at her heels, before he headed up to the attic. He knocked on the door, but when he got no response, he just went into the room. Ambrose was fast asleep, doing his best impression of a starfish as he slept on his stomach, arms and legs spread out over the entirety of the bed. 

“Ambrose, wake up,” he tried, but was only met with a soft snore. Thinking of Sabrina down in the morgue, the warlock sighed and resorted to pulling the covers away. “Come on, Ambrose,” he said, a little louder this time. 

The man in the bed grumbled, only opening one eye to look at who disturbed his sleep. “Did you get the wrong bedroom, Scratch? I certainly don’t mind, but my cousin might,” he mumbled, his voice heavy. 

Nick took a deep breath. “You need to wake up. Sabrina needs your help, Ambrose.” 

That got his attention, his head snapping up as he pushed himself into a sitting position, suddenly wide awake. “What happened?” 

“She’s just … she’s overwhelmed with everything that went down. To say that she had a nightmare would put it mildly and she’s scared that there might be a part of the Void inside of her. Like with the Weird One, but a lot worse. You need to use Sweeney’s butcher paper again, show her that she’s okay,” the younger man explained. 

“This is about a nightmare?” Ambrose asked, his eyebrows raised as he got out of bed. 

“Technically, yes. But what she told me … for Hecate’s sake, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone and some of that is going to stay with me for a while, too. She’s not okay, Ambrose.” 

“How long have you been awake?” He grabbed his robe and tied the belt, already on the way out of his room. “Wait, where is Sabrina?” 

“Almost two hours now. And she’s already down at the morgue with Salem,” Nick answered as he followed the other man down the stairs. 

“Two hours?” 

“Her subconscious came up with a different version of what happened after she went to trap the Void. I spent a lot of time reminding her that it wasn’t real and what really happened. Long story short, she had a part of the Void inside her and sacrificed herself in that dream, slowly bled out to save everyone else.” He spared her cousin the rest of the details and left out the part where he had killed himself to be with her. It was enough that he knew. 

“Sweet Hecate,” Ambrose mumbled. 

“That’s why she needs to see that she’s whole, that there’s no Void inside of her.” 

“Of course,” the older warlock agreed. They walked the rest of the way in silence and when he entered the morgue, he found Sabrina sitting here, Salem in her lap. She looked up and after taking a quick look at his cousin, he knew exactly what Scratch had meant. She was paler than usual, her hair a mess, her eyes still slightly red. His little cousin was most definitely not okay and it hurt to see her like this. The Sabrina he knew was a ball of fiery energy, her aura big and bright and confident. The Sabrina before him looked small and tired and vulnerable and he didn’t like it one bit. He exchanged a quick look with the other man before taking a deep breath. “Alright, cousin, Nick filled me in. Let’s make sure that everything is the way it should be.” 

“Sorry for waking you up,” she said quietly. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he answered, wrapping her in a quick one-armed hug, then quickly set up the table. “Hop on,” Ambrose said, nodding towards it. 

Sabrina closed her eyes for a moment before she sat Salem down in the chair she had occupied. Nick squeezed her shoulder comfortingly and she sent him a weak smile before she got on the table, her eyes squeezed shut already. She needed this to be over with. 

“Eyes closed, everyone,” Ambrose instructed before flashing the big overhead light he had placed over her. 

When Sabrina opened her eyes, Nick already reached out to help her off the table and she quickly scrambled off the paper and let him wrap her in his arms again, her back to the table. “Come on, Spellman. Nothing to be afraid of. I promise,” he said. 

She could hear the smile in his voice and sure enough, it was there when she raised her head to look at him. Sabrina took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder, heaving a sigh of relief when she saw that all of her organs were still there. 

“Everything’s right there, and in perfect working order, from the looks of it,” Ambrose supplied with a reassuring smile. 

Nick pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head, relief flooding him as well. Although he had been sure that it would turn out this way, the tiniest sliver of fear had been there, too. Fear that she was right and the dream had been a message from the Void. But she was whole and alive in his arms. They would figure out the rest, given enough time. 

Sabrina wiggled out of his embrace and quickly rounded the table, hugging her cousin as well. “Thank you, Ambrose,” she said quietly. The images of him in her dream still very much at the forefront of her mind, she buried herself closer when he wrapped his arms around her. 

Ambrose looked at Nick over Sabrina’s head, a silent question if the force of her hug was connected to what he had told him earlier, getting a slight nod in confirmation. If he squeezed her a little tighter after that, she didn’t seem to mind. “Of course, cousin,” he answered. Salem meowed from his spot on the chair, making the warlock raise an eyebrow. “And what exactly do you want praise for? You didn’t do anything.” 

“That’s not true,” Sabrina argued as she pulled away. She walked over to her familiar and started scratching him between his ears. “He kept me company.” Salem’s answering chirp tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Yes, you’re the best, Salem.” 

“Outplayed by a familiar,” Ambrose sighed. 

Nick crossed the room and wrapped his arm around Sabrina’s waist, enjoying the way she relaxed into his side. “Feel better?” he asked softly, smiling a little when she nodded. “How about we go back upstairs and let Ambrose get back to sleep?” 

“Sabrina has kept me up at night long before she could even walk, why should that change now?” the older warlock answered as he folded up the paper they had used, a fond smile on his face when he remembered his tiny baby cousin falling asleep on his chest after feeding her in the middle of the night. Looking at the young witch standing there with her boyfriend and still petting her familiar, it was hard to wrap his head around the fact that only a bit more than 16 years had passed since those days. “But I wouldn’t say no to more sleep, so I’m going back to bed and you two should do the same,” he advised, already heading out the door. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite – or do, if that’s your thing,” Ambrose threw over his shoulder. 

“Why is he like that?” Sabrina asked. 

Nick chuckled and kissed her temple. “You wouldn’t want him any other way.” 

“I guess you’re right.” 

“Am I not always?” he answered, smiling when she huffed. “Come on, Spellman.” He led her upstairs, but Sabrina stopped in front of the staircase that would lead them up to her bedroom. “What is it?” 

“I think I’ll stay down here, maybe watch a movie or something,” she said. “But you go upstairs and get some sleep.” 

He knew what she was doing, but it wasn’t going to work. “Any particular movie you want to watch?” 

“Nick-” 

“No. I’m either going to stay down here with you or you’re coming back to bed with me. Which is it going to be?” Nick raised an eyebrow while he waited for her answer, leaving no room for argument. 

“Fine, you win,” Sabrina mumbled and rolled her eyes when he looked way too pleased with himself. Back in her room, she quickly hung up her robe again and slipped back under the covers, watching as Nick got rid of his pants again before he joined her, immediately opening his arms for her in a wordless invitation. She quickly snuggled into his side, her head resting on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. But soon enough, she started shifting, wrapping her arm around his middle instead, shuffling around a little to get more comfortable. 

Nick sighed when Sabrina still kept moving several minutes later, seemingly unable to find a comfortable position. Her hair tickled him every time she found a new way to nestle into his side and he had an increasingly hard time to keep himself from laughing. “Okay, that’s it,” he finally said and rolled them over, hovering over her. He enjoyed the wide-eyed look she gave him probably a little more than he should. “What’s the matter, Spellman?” 

She reached up and started playing with his messy curls, ink black in the pale moonlight. “I just … I don’t know. I’m restless, Nick.” 

“Yeah. I noticed,” he answered, unable to hide the small smile when she pursed her lips. 

Sabrina sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll just go downstairs and let you catch some sleep. I kept you up long enough.” 

“Or you could talk to me,” Nick argued when she tried to wiggle out from underneath him. 

“I guess I’m just afraid to go to sleep,” she finally confessed after a moment of silence. “I’m afraid the nightmare comes back. I mean, we just checked and I know that I’m okay, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, but that dream felt so real and I can’t get the pictures out of my head.” 

“Give it time, Spellman. It wasn’t just the dream. Everything else that happened in the last few days and weeks … that stuff left its mark on all of us.” Not even taking into account the rest of the year they had had since her sixteenth birthday. 

“It did. I’m sorry. You had enough to deal with without my added baggage.” Sabrina buried her hand in his hair and looked at him with a small smile. “Sometimes I wonder why you decided it was worth trying again. So much happened to you because of me." 

“Easy. Because I love you and that’s not going to change. And none of what happened was your fault,” he said before leaning in brushing a soft kiss against her lips. 

“I love you, too,” she murmured against his lips before pulling him back in for a proper kiss. She dragged her fingertips from his hair down his neck and back, humming when she came in contact with his warm skin. “How are you not cold? You didn’t even put on a shirt when we went down to the morgue,” she asked quietly, her lips still brushing against his when she spoke. 

“Hell was good for something, I guess.” 

“Nick …” 

He kissed her again. “It was. I could get your body back because of that,” he explained and ran his hand down her side, “and I can keep you warm.” 

“My body that still doesn’t really feel like my own.” She could hear the frustration reflected in her own voice, but it didn’t even begin to cover how disjointed she still felt inside. 

“You need to give it time. Hecate knows it took me a while until I felt like my body belonged to me again,” he confessed. “But I got there. And so will you.” Nick figured that the fact that they had transferred her soul twice in a matter of hours was to blame for her feeling the way she did. 

Sabrina drew in a shaky breath. “I just want to forget not being in my own body,” she admitted quietly before meeting his gaze. “Make me forget.” 

He shook his head. “I’m not going to play around with your memory.” 

“Nick –” 

“No. You have to work through this, Spellman. Shortcuts don’t work, I learned that the hard way,” he reminded her. “Don’t make my mistakes.” 

She looked at him, saw a flicker of the pain he had gone through to come out on the other side. “I just want you to make me forget for a little while,” she asked, dragging her fingertips over his back a little more insistently. 

“Sabrina, I told you, I won’t …” he trailed off when her hand slowly slipped lower and under the blanket that covered both of them. His eyebrows shot up when she reached the hem of his underwear. “Oh. That’s what you mean,” Nick mumbled. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, either.” 

“I want to feel like everything is back to normal, Nick. That I’m myself again and that everything’s going to be okay.” She trailed her fingertips up again, following his spine all the way up until she reached the nape of his neck. “Please?” 

He looked at her, tried to find signs that she came from an unhealthy place, that they shouldn’t do this because it would make things worse instead of helping her. But all he saw in her eyes was the need for comfort, the same need he felt since they had brought her back from the Void, since he had been so close to losing her. The need that drove him to orbit around her, unable to stop himself from constantly touching her in some way. To convince himself that she was real and alive and whole. 

“Okay,” he agreed quietly and kissed her, but pulled back when she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just one thing.” When she opened her eyes again to look at him, he continued. “We’re not forcing this. If we end up there, okay. If we end up just making out, that’s okay, too. But we are not going to force this.” This wasn’t about having sex. This was about finding peace and comfort in each other and he needed her to see that. 

“Okay,” Sabrina echoed, playing with the short hair at the back of his neck. “Just as long as you keep kissing me.” 

Nick didn’t answer but closed the distance between them instead, capturing her lips in a soft kiss. He could most definitely do that. It didn’t take long until their hands started to wander, Sabrina pulling him closer. He went willingly, the hand that had rested on her waist slowly drifting lower. She gasped into the kiss when his hand met the bare skin of her thigh and he chuckled. 

“What’s so funny?” she asked, slightly pulling away. 

Nick gave her thigh a gentle squeeze and reveled in her sharp intake of breath. “Just thinking about how much I appreciate that you exchanged those pajamas for the nightgowns you’ve been wearing lately. Even if you looked cute in them. Innocent.” He lowered his head to her shoulder and nudged the thin strap away with his nose before trailing kisses to her collarbone. 

“They’ll make a comeback in winter,” she mumbled, her eyes closed as her head fell to the side when Nick’s lips made contact with the sensitive skin below her ear. 

He hummed against her neck, sending a different kind of shiver down her spine. “We’ll see how long you’ll insist on wearing them when I’m going to take my time unbuttoning those tops.” His hand slowly traveled up again, under the hem of her clothes. He felt the lace of her underwear under his fingertips and stilled for a moment before moving up further, pushing up the nightgown in the process. 

“Nick?” She sounded breathless. 

“Yeah?” His thumb caressed the soft skin just under her breast and he felt her shudder. 

“Stop talking and kiss me.” Sabrina tried to pull him back in, but he shook his head slightly. 

“Let’s get you out of this thing first,” he suggested, pushing the fabric up further, a smirk on his face when she simply nodded. Nick brushed a soft kiss across her lips when she arched into him after he pulled the nightgown over her head, carelessly dropping it to the floor. “Much better,” he mumbled before kissing her, enjoying the feeling of her pressed up against him again. 

He would have been okay with staying like this, feeling her skin against his and under his fingertips, kissing her. However, the way she was gently dragging her nails down his back told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted more and he was more than okay with that, too. 

His mouth left hers and her head fell back as he trailed gentle open-mouthed kiss to her collarbone. Nick looked at her to gauge her reaction when he traced the line she had subconsciously drawn across her chest earlier. Her eyes snapped open when she realized what he was doing and she raised her head to look at him, whispering his name. 

“Everything’s okay, babe, try to relax,” he said, his lips brushing her skin. Sabrina nodded and lay back down, but she was still tense. Nick pushed himself up and kissed her softly, letting his mouth linger against hers. When he pulled away, he held her gaze. “Let me replace those images?” he asked. 

“Okay,” she agreed after a moment, a small smile tugging on the corners of her mouth to answer the one on his face. When he started to brush gentle kisses over the imaginary line again, she closed her eyes, letting him chase away the remainder of that part of her nightmare. Sabrina had no idea how long he lingered there, seemingly intent to make sure that no ghosts were left before he moved further down, covering every inch of her skin with soft kisses. Sabrina whimpered when he palmed her breast while his mouth was paying attention to the other, quickly biting her lower lip, embarrassed at the sound. 

Nick raised his head, a smirk on his face when he saw that she had slightly sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “Don’t try to keep quiet, Spellman. I want to hear you.” His smirk grew wider. “Besides, there’s a privacy spell in place. There’s no need to hold back.” He reached up and cradled her face, using his thumb to gently free her lower lip from the grasp she had on it with her teeth. Nick took in a shuddering breath when she grazed her teeth over his finger instead, holding his gaze as she did. 

He broke their connection and lowered his head again while dragging his fingertips down her body, resuming his earlier task and fighting a smile when he heard her content sigh and she buried a hand in his hair, holding him in place. He quickly pushed the thought aside who he been kidding when he had thought it a possibility that things wouldn’t progress further than making out. 

“Nick, please,” Sabrina rushed out when he traveled further down, taking the blanket with him as he covered her abdomen in kisses, finally following the hemline of her underwear with his lips. Her mind was blissfully empty except for the need to feel him touch her and touch him in return. She lost her hold of him when he worked her panties off her body and almost agonizingly slowly kissed his way back up, settling between her legs. 

She almost sobbed in relief when he finally put his mouth on her, one hand buried in his hair again while the other gripped her sheets for support, her knuckles turning white. His name tumbled over her lips again and again as he brought her closer to the edge, her grasp on time completely lost. She arched off the mattress when Nick’s fingers joined in and his mouth became more insistent. Soon enough she fell apart, crying his name as he worked her through her orgasm, slowly bringing her down. 

When he raised his head again, she was panting, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to catch her breath. Her eyes were still squeezed shut, her hand still had a death grip on her sheets that only loosened as he moved up her body again. Sabrina trailed her hand over his shoulder and down his back, touching every bit of his skin she could reach. 

She could taste herself on his lips when he kissed her and pressed herself closer, wanting as much skin contact as she could get. However, she frowned slightly when she wrapped her leg around him and broke the kiss. “Why are you still wearing boxers?” She sounded almost offended. 

He huffed a laugh and pecked her mouth again. “I had other priorities.” 

“Take them off,” she told him, reaching down to help speed things along when he didn’t move at first. 

Nick chuckled at her eagerness and did as she asked, slotting himself between her legs and kissing her again as soon as he had gotten rid of the piece of clothing that had irked her. She wrapped her arms around him again, hands roaming his back and arching into his touch when his hand traveled up and down her side. 

“Are you okay?” he asked after a while when she had made no attempt to take control over the situation. 

“I’d be better if you were inside me,” she answered bluntly, pressing her hips against his. She enjoyed the little groan that tore from his throat at the contact. 

Nick dropped his forehead to her shoulder, trying to gather his thoughts. “It’s just, usually you’d be on top of me by now,” he said, trying to keep his confusion at bay as best as possible. She didn’t say anything at first and he was afraid to have said something wrong, trying find his mistake, when she spoke. 

“I know, but … I think I need you to be on top this time,” she confessed. It was silly, really, but feeling his weight on top of her gave her a sense of security right now that she needed, anchoring her in a way she couldn’t put into words. “Is that okay?” 

He searched her face for any sign that she was uncomfortable, but all he found was that look in her eyes again that longed for comfort. “Of course that’s okay,” Nick answered, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear before trailing his hand down her body, his fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake. 

He placed his hand over her stomach and quickly took care of the contraception spell before guiding himself into her, holding eye contact when she gasped. Once he was fully inside her, he stayed still, soaking up the moment, the comfort of being as close to her as they could physically get. 

Sabrina pulled him in for a gentle kiss and rocked her hips into his, urging him to move. She couldn’t stop the moan that spilled out of her when he finally did, setting a slow rhythm that she was sure would drive her insane if he kept it up. 

It held nothing of the urgency they had felt on other occasions, when they had almost ripped the clothes off of one another, driven by lust. His slow, deep strokes now, the way his dark eyes didn’t stray from hers, how he had wrapped his arm around her to hold her close like she would break if he wasn’t careful – it was a different kind of intimacy. Tender, both of them so vulnerable but finding comfort in every little touch. “I love you,” she whispered. 

“I love you, too,” he responded just as quietly. She held her breath when he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her chest, right over her heart. For a moment, she wondered if he could feel it beating under his lips, but then he sped up his thrusts and all coherent thoughts left her mind. Sabrina dragged her hands over his back, desperate to touch him, hold onto him, when he slipped his hand between them. 

His name was a breathless little sound when he started touching her, hurrying her along, while peppering her neck with soft kisses. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the onslaught of things he made her feel, the stark contrast of his kisses and the way he moved inside her almost too much and yet not enough at the same time. Needing more, she wrapped her legs around him, the slightly different angle making both of them groan. 

“Nick, please … I … I’m so close …” He cut her off with a quick kiss when he felt her tighten around him, speeding up his thrusts further, desperate to get her there. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, muffling her cries as she came again, his name the only thing he could make out. 

“Sabrina …” It only took a few more thrusts for Nick to follow, his movements stilling as he kissed her again, trembling with the force of his own orgasm. When he stopped shuddering, he rested his forehead against her shoulder, struggling to catch his breath, his eyes closed. 

He felt her kiss his temple, felt her fingertips dance across his back, one hand combing through his messy curls so gently it made him want to stay like this forever. Tangled up with her, away from the world where nothing could touch them. “I love you so much, Spellman,” he whispered, his lips lingering against her skin in another soft kiss right over her heart. He could feel it beating under his touch, her still racing pulse comforting him in a different way – the confirmation that she was okay and that this was real and not just a figment of his imagination. 

“I love you, too, Nick,” she replied, “you have no idea how much.” Sabrina kissed his temple again, soaking up the love that radiated off of him. To think that he had once doubted that he was able to love would have been comical if it wasn’t so tragic. 

She lovingly dragged her fingers through his hair, enjoying the way he tried to hold her even closer, ignoring the fact that he had her very much pressed into the mattress as it was. This boyfriend of hers was made up of contradictions: so gentle and soft at times that it almost broke her heart but wielding necromancy or conjuring demons if it was necessary like it was nothing, brimming with so much magical potential. He really had no idea how much she loved every single one of his facets. 

With a sigh, Nick forced himself to roll off of her, immediately pulling her into his side. His arm was wrapped tightly around her as she rested her head on his chest, nestled close into his embrace. “How are you feeling?” he finally broke the silence. 

“Do you really have to ask?” Sabrina replied, a small smile on her face when he brushed his hand over her waist. 

“Not what I meant,” he said, the amusement evident in his voice. “But still good to know.” He brushed a soft kiss over her forehead. 

She was quiet for a moment, her eyes tracing the patterns she drew on her shoulder with her fingertips. “Better,” she finally answered, the storm that had raged inside her calmed down a little. 

“Good.” The word was followed up by another soft kiss to her head before he closed his eyes, content to live in the moment. Nick had no idea how long they lay wrapped around each other like that when he noticed her even breathing, her fingers stilling against his skin. He smiled and brushed his fingertips across her temple, quietly speaking the words that would grant her a dreamless sleep, soon following behind as he let the mix of exhaustion and warmth pull him under. 

When Sabrina woke up again a few hours later to fingertips ghosting over her cheek, she was still tightly wrapped up in Nick’s arms, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth at the realization that she didn’t feel as cold anymore. 


End file.
